BATTLEFIELD 2042

TDeveloper DICE Publisher Electronic Arts Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release October 21

he roulette wheel of military shooters continues to spin. Having mined the two great wars in its most recent instalments, it’s now Battlefield’s turn to head back to the future. And, after the prior game whittled down the singleplayer campaign to three hour-long episodes (at launch, at least), that element has now been jettisoned entirely, as has any attempt at a battle royale mode. Time for the messaging to switch to ‘back to basics’, then.

It’s easy to be cynical, but you have to admit that the result of this shift in focus looks like damn good fun. Fighting in a virtual war that didn’t actually happen makes it feel looser from the get-go, and the science-fiction approach expands the toybox considerably. Shown so far are hovercrafts, flying-squirrel wingsuits and a quadrupedal robot with more than a hint of Boston Dynamics about it.

Battlefield 2042’s debut exists in a strange limbo, courtesy of EA’s decision to mostly duck E3 week in favour of its own publisher event in July. The result is a game that feels halfway announced. Billed as a three-part multiplayer offering – at least one of which has been built by an entirely separate studio – two of those parts are being saved for EA Play. The only one that has been fully announced is All-Out Warfare, which confusingly enough is itself an umbrella for two modes, Conquest and

Breakthrough. These are both series perennials, but with the player count scaled up to 128 on new-gen consoles and PC. It’s half only that on Xbox One and PS4, raising the question of whether maps and modes will need to be considerably redesigned for each version of the game.

To help fill out those matches, bots are being reintroduced for the first time since 2006’s Battlefield 2142. (You do have to respect DICE’s commitment to confusing naming conventions.) It’s possible to play a match without a single human opponent, a decision intended to serve as an onramp for newer players, or to create a co-op experience for those who prefer to play with a few select friends.

None of which matters as much as the moment in the trailer when someone drives a quad bike off the top of a skyscraper and into the side of a helicopter. It appears in both the cinematic and in-game action trailers – in the latter case with the addition of a second player detonating the vehicle’s C4 payload on impact. And it’s happening while a tornado rips across the map, sucking up soldiers and vehicles alike. It’s encouraging that a scripted beat can be not only recreated in-game but improved upon, and if 2042 can routinely deliver such moments, then everything beyond them – the endless spin of the roulette wheel – shouldn’t matter too much.

Fighting in a virtual war that didn’t actually happen makes it feel looser from the get-go